Thoughts Are Things

Taken from "Thoughts Are Things" by Prentice Mulford:

"Our bodies also are ever throwing off through the skin matter they can no longer use. In the great city thousands on thousands of bodies are throwing out disused element too fine to rank even as dust. It is thrown off by sick bodies, and many are sick on their feet. This we breathe. We breathe each other over and over again."

Calcified

I had to take my boyfriend to the emergency room last Saturday night. They kept us there for eight hours... He has a kidney stone, and as of today, it's still floating around. The doctor, (a blonde British gent with Laryngitis that had to whisper his prognosis,) wasn't able to do much because the hospital was under-staffed and over-populated. They pumped him full of pain medicine, gave him a cat scan, and told him he'd eventually pass it. The pain has been causing him to throw up violently, there and back and into the following day. If it's not gone by this afternoon, I'm buying him a six pack and a bottle of tequila. That's sure to get it out, no?

Blueberry Bread Pudding

I tried out a yummy recipe last week! It took a while, (you have to chill it over night,) but it was well worth the wait.

Ingredients

• 1 (16-ounce) French bread loaf, cubed
• 1 (8-ounce) package cream cheese, cut into pieces
• 3 cups fresh blueberries, divided
• 6 large eggs
• 4 cups milk
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup butter or margarine, melted
• 1/4 cup maple syrup
• 1 (10-ounce) jar blueberry preserves
• Garnishes: fresh mint leaves, edible pansies

Preparation

Arrange half of bread cubes in a lightly greased 13- x 9-inch pan. Sprinkle evenly with cream cheese and 1 cup blueberries; top with remaining bread cubes.

Whisk together eggs, 4 cups milk, sugar, butter, and maple syrup; pour over bread mixture, pressing bread cubes to absorb egg mixture. Cover and chill 8 hours.

Bake, covered, at 350° for 30 minutes. Uncover and bake 30 more minutes or until lightly browned and set. Let stand 5 minutes before serving.

Stir together remaining 2 cups blueberries and blueberry preserves in a saucepan over low heat until warm. Serve blueberry mixture over bread pudding. Garnish, if desired.

*****

After bringing half of it to the office, a fellow co-worker asked for the recipe and tried it out with strawberries. Yum! It would be really tasty with peaches or apricots as well.

See more recipes at Southern Living.

Photosketch

A new way to photoshop?

"A group of students in China have created PhotoSketch, a project that takes a rough, hand-drawn sketch, scours the web for photos that match, and runs them through an algorithm, stitching it all together." Check out the video below to see how it's done:

Editors

I just found out that Editors will be releasing their third studio album entitled "In This Light & On This Evening" on 10/13/09. I had the opportunity to see them in San Francisco a few years back, and they put on an amazing show. I can't wait!

Check out their newest single below:

Editors - Papillon

And check out their official site for videos and news.

Muse - Undisclosed Desires

I love this song right now! It's one of those I could listen to on repeat all night...

Dream Sequence

It's too bad I couldn't find these bigger. They're gorgeous as full pages in the latest issue of W Magazine.

Alfred Cheney Johnston

I absolutely adore these portraits. I haven't yet found a site that offers a large selection of his images, but maybe I'm not looking hard enough.

Ikea Room Planner

Being a desert dweller, it's hard to take advantage of the affordable luxuries offered by Ikea. For those of you that have an Ikea near you, I'm sure it's no big deal; for me, the nearest Ikea is six hours away, so when I finally make it out there, I must have a plan.

Last week I discovered the Ikea room planner. Even if you're not on Ikea fan, the program is a pretty nifty time passer. It installs onto your computer, then allows you to enter room dimensions, doors, windows, etc...You can then furnish the room with current catalog products, and create a 3D model to see how it looks. After that, you can save it to Ikea's server, pull it up at the store, and voila! You've got your shopping list! My only issue is that they don't offer living room furniture yet, only kitchen, office, and bedroom products. Still, it's been a big help in putting together the spare bedrooms. Here's an example:



Check out the program here!

Care and Feeding of a Mermaid